Emma Thompson and Kate Winslet shine as Jane Austen heroines that endeavor to maintain their composure while swooning over the highly eligible swains Hugh Grant and Alan Rickman. Please don’t tell us that nobody got along on this production, because the result seems all so pleasant. Emma Thompson’s adaptation could hardly be improved, and Ang…
William Gibson’s multi-character soap about a psychiatric clinic has a severe case of Caligari Syndrome: the doctors need more counseling than do the patients. Richard Widmark leads an impressive cast (Lauren Bacall, Charles Boyer, Gloria Grahame, Lillian Gish, John Kerr, Susan Strasberg, Oscar Levant, Paul Stewart) as everybody goes crazy over various manias, staff rivalries,…
Cy Endfield’s intense African survival adventure purports to teach lessons about the Territorial Imperative and the easy slide to savagery when civilization is far away. Plane-wreck survivors in a remote African desert must fight the local baboon population for food and water. Stuart Whitman, Stanley Baker and Nigel Davenport are tempted by the female castaway,…
When writer/director Zach Cregger’s film Barbarian was released in 2022, horror fans recognized that rare thing – an original voice, with the talent to back it up. That combination doesn’t come around that often. Frequently one sees visual stylists working from scripts teeming with cliched tropes, or perhaps a small character study with decent atmosphere…
The early pre-Code era yields two star vehicles from the dawn of Sylvia Sidney’s long career. In Confessions of a Co-Ed her college girl falls for Phillips Holmes’ thoughtless student and gets herself ‘in a family way.’ In Ladies of the Big House she and her new husband Gene Raymond are framed by a gangster…
Another reissue disc that we wish were revived in an extras-laden 4K edition. Roman Polanski’s exceedingly rewarding thriller gives us Harrison Ford at his very best as an American doctor trying to recover his wife kidnapped at the outset of their Parisian getaway. Was the appeal more for middle-agers than kids? Not funny enough? Not…
Is it a Gothic fairy tale, a fantastic romance, or a backhanded comment about wounded war veterans? Mutilated flier Robert Young and the ‘unacceptably plain’ (?) Dorothy McGuire find each other in a seaside love nest out of a Harlequin Novel, overcome their self-loathing, and experience a miracle. Why not? The only witnesses are a…
Otto Preminger’s take on the Françoise Sagan’s novel finds the right tone despite the drawback of censorship limitations and Englanders and Americans playing French characters. CinemaScope and Technicolor on Saint-Tropez locations help, but the big plus is the radiant presence of Preminger’s discovery Jean Seberg as Sagan’s amoral heroine Cécile. David Niven is the father…
Pairing wine with movies! See the trailers and hear the fascinating commentary for these movies and many more at Trailers From Hell. For my next trick, a little escapism. Movie magic, from serious to comedic, with wine pairings appearing for each one. My initial impression of Harry Houdini came from the master illusionist’s portrayal by…
One of the best-ever documentaries about the making of a movie returns in a fresh 4K restoration, with its feature film clips rendered in full widescreen resolution. New interviews and featurettes are provided by Francis Coppola, and the late Eleanor Coppola is represented with a new documentary piece and encodings of several of her short…
No, it’s not a new disc. This is also not exactly a disc review, but Warner’s reissue allows us to write about Sam Peckinpah’s film for the first time in years. We’re happy to recount the film’s twisted release history, and its path on home video. The point of course, is to encourage Warner Bros….
Sorcerer 1977 – 1.85:1 – 121 Min. Criterion – 4K Ultra HD + Blu-ray Starring Roy Scheider, Bruno Cremer, Amidou, Francisco Rabal Written by Walon Green Directed by William Friedkin The son of a French politician, Henri Girard was 28 years old when he was imprisoned for the murder of his father—19 months later he…
MGM’s in-house Blu-ray label is back with another worthy remaster: a Mirisch- supervised West German production that leads with a Gene Pitney smash hit single and gives Kirk Douglas another tough-guy attorney to play. A brutal gang rape in Germany puts four U.S. soldiers on trial; to save their lives, Kirk must demolish victim Christine…
For some reason, Hollywood doesn’t seem to be making as many romantic comedies or dramas anymore. The reasons behind this are debatable, but the era in which Pretty Woman and When Harry Met Sally roamed the earth seems distant. Have no fear, however, because real-life married couple Alison Brie and Dave Franco have arrived to…
Pairing wine with movies! See the trailers and hear the fascinating commentary for these movies and many more at Trailers From Hell. Please join us in lifting a glass to remember director and TFH guru Jonathan Kaplan. In 1977, Kaplan directed Mr. Billion. Noted for bringing Terence Hill to American movie-goers for the first time,…
Once restored, old movies with ‘creaky’ reputations can yield surprising qualities, especially when the filmmaker is as earnest and creative as the great King Vidor. This English production sees the director engaged by the controversy of medical ethics. The approach may be emotional, but the film makes its points well. Robert Donat, Rosalind Russell and…
Italian maestro Luchino Visconti set the ’50s high mark for epic period reconstruction and historical authenticity. Alida Valli and Farley Granger’s doomed affair plays against a backdrop of civil war in the 1865 il Risorgimento. This new restoration brings out the feel of original Technicolor prints. It includes the English-language version, with dialogue written by…
Italy’s anarchic master thief gets a Covid-era trilogy of films that hew fairly closely to stories from the original Giussani comic books: Diabolik, Diabolik: Ginko Attacks!, Diabolik: Who Am I? It’s all very serious, literal and evenly paced, but can boast terrific art direction and a couple of intriguing characterizations. We’re impressed by the faithful…
A Warners reissue puts the cream of American gangster epics within easy reach, and at a better price. Robinson, Cagney and Bogart each found stardom in crime, just before the Production Code banned the genre outright. The four-disc set tells the rags-to-riches-to-gutter tales of Cesare Rico Bandello, Tom Powers, Duke Mantee and Cody Jarrett. That…
Pairing wine with movies! See the trailers and hear the fascinating commentary for these movies and many more at Trailers From Hell. This week, our wines are paired with films that are set on the high seas. A Countess from Hong Kong is a romantic comedy from 1967, back before they referred to the genre…
The second Quatermass adventure sees Brian Donlevy’s pushy Professor singlehandedly quash a totalitarian takeover of England in just 36 hours — an incredible interplanetary conspiracy! The most exciting chapter of the classic series is given a massive boxed set by the ‘new’ Hammer Films, a full five discs plus the entire original BBC serial and…
We’re always interested in movies about ships, and Lewis Gilbert’s accomplished Napoleonic battle epic is back in a Region B disc with some new extras. Alec Guinness’s captain is up against mutinous sailors and Dirk Bogarde’s troublemaking executive officer, a sadist who takes his anger out on the captain’s young son. With excellent visual effects…
Carnal Knowledge 1971 – 2.35:1 – 98 Min. Criterion – 4K Ultra HD + Blu-ray Starring Jack Nicholson, Art Garfunkel, Ann-Margret, Candice Bergen Written by Jules Feiffer Directed by Mike Nichols Cartoonist Jules Feiffer, who passed away this year at the age of 95, spent a lifetime documenting the pratfalls of young men on the…
Modest Z-picture Sci-fi groaners are an American staple, but this English effort is just as desperate. Landing on a moon of Jupiter, Astronauts find a verdant valley just like England, and encounter an Atlantean society with nymphs that dance to Borodin. We watched it 20 times as kids, and it never made much sense; perhaps…
Pairing wine with movies! See the trailers and hear the fascinating commentary for these movies and many more at Trailers From Hell. This week, we steal some wine pairings for three movies where the stakes were much higher than a bottle of vino. Scratch any cinephile, and you’ll see traces of the 1955 French crime…